How Much Do Partners Need to Share?

Apple’s newest iPhone features a fingerprint sensor that can recognize up to five prints. Will your partner’s be one of them? It's a very modern quandary to be sure, but the cellphone has become an undeniable symbol of trust in relationships—or the lack of it.

Many people struggle with how much information they should share—or want to share—with their partner. Letting a boyfriend or girlfriend scroll through your phone or have access to your key passwords has become something of a relationship milestone. It implies trust and may symbolize intimacy and connection as well. Handing over control of your phone to allow your partner to look through your photos, text messages, and call history may show him or her that you have nothing to hide, that there are no secrets between you.

At the same time, though, if partners truly trust one another, is there any reason to want to look through each other’s personal correspondence?

Such smartphone and email privacy issues have given rise to wildly debated “do you or don’t you snoop?” questions on relationship websites. Many partners who haven’t given each free access to each other’s phones or email accounts apparently do snoop: A new study from the UK found that 34 percent of women in relationships, and 62 percent of men, admitted to snooping through a partner’s phone. Among those who snooped, 89 percent admitted that they did it to determine whether a partner was cheating—and in nearly half of those cases, their suspicions were correct.

The takeaway isn’t that joint smartphone access signifies a healthy, monogamous relationship. Nor is it that any partner without something to hide should be willing to hand over his or her phone. There is a place for privacy in loving, trusting relationships, and it’s important to remember that a person’s request for privacy doesn’t mean he’s up to no good. Similarly, putting your significant other on your shortlist of those with access to your info does not necessarily mean you have intimacy or connection. It can be an extension of trust in a relationship, but it doesn’t create trust or connection when it’s not really there.

In the end, the phone is just a symbol of something much larger.

The key is in not sacrificing openness for privacy. If your partner wants the password to your e-mail account, she should be able to have it, and vice versa. At the same time, you might have a conversation about why there’s no need to go poking around. One policy may be to decide to live your lives together offline—and vow never to exchange passwords, or fingerprints, or otherwise access one another’s emails, texts, or photos. In cases where either partner feels they need to have that access, agree to talk about the underlying issue instead. Feelings of jealousy is normal; so is feeling left out of the other person’s life. But reading through messages—authorized or not—won’t make you feel any more connected, just as having access won’t prevent infidelity.

What could? Trust and respect.

Peggy Drexler, Ph.D. is a research psychologist, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Weill Medical College, Cornell University, and author of two books about modern families and the children they produce. Follow Peggy on Twitter and Facebook and learn more about Peggy at www.peggydrexler.com

I walked in the bedroom one day and found an old girlfriend going through my phone. I said watcha doing? She said "uh uh well uh." I said it's ok go ahead. I want you to know that I have nothing to hide from you, so really it's ok. You can look. I understood that she was insecure about us and what I did that day calmed her fears and it all got better.

Until the day that I looked at her phone and she called me insecure. I bet you can guess what I found.

One thing I do understand is that when someone calls another insecure. They are usually using it as projection and a defense mechanism.

I see the word insecure used way to much in the comments on this website. Most truly secure people don't seem to need to use that word.

If people don't want to let another look at their phone then they are usually hiding something and are pretty INSECURE about it. Hey look, there goes PTs favorite word again.

It is a defence mechanism by people who probably have something to hide.
To be honest if I got my partner checking my phone I wouldn't just say you can look, and it is because why didn't she ask. If it was so important for her to check your phone, she should have asked a permission. It is disgusting. When I was in a "non-healthy" relationship, my ex boyfriend was so jealous. He did not talk to me for 2 weeks because I went out with my friends. He made few other dramas, too. Later it came out that he was flirting with other women during our relationship. It was a good lesson for me; I would never explain myself again as I was always explaining to him.

Has anybody thought about the privacy of the partner's email and phone contacts? I might email someone about a private matter and I sure as hell don't want his/her snoopy partner reading it. I had to cut off contact with a friend with a possessive gf because I could never be sure that his gf wouldn't have access to his phone and sneakily delete my texts before he could see them. (He's dumped the Klingon now so all back to normal.) I know there's no guarantee that any communication you send to someone will stay just with them, but I want to deal with the organ grinder, not the monkey...

Great article. I have found...and tend to think, in a lot of cases, that offering the passwords, etc. signifies nothing to hide. Openness. That step alone basically diffuses the need to check or utilize the passwords. The knowing that if was needed..you can. And that your partner is okay with that.
Not sure about boyfriend/girlfriend dynamics(depends on long term potential) but I certainly don't think it's an unwise thing to do entering into engagement and/or marriage. That level of trust, transparency and - frankly - sense of accountability impacts a positive climate for genuine intimacy (which requires varying degrees of willing vulnerability & transparency). In spite of what this article states, it is the message of willing vulnerability and transparency that matters here, with, of course, the caveat that the recipient of the passwords understands this and treats that openness with care and respect. The willingness to be that open counts a great deal. It's affect powerful. It also lets your partner know that you truly care about their position of vulnerability in trusting as well...not just your "rights". That, in my opinion, is all part of giving of yourself in a real relationship. Offered, not demanded or imposed. That's the key, here. And in my experience, it goes very far.

I was in a relationship with someone who was very private with there past . we were living together and after a period of time I really wanted to know what this persons past was all about. they didn't talk about anything at all from there past , not even jobs, childhood, friends not anything....so yes I went snooping around the house.....I told him I did and why. he broke up with me and wont even talk to me at all...blocked me from his life without a goodbye. makes me wonder what the past was all about .

I found out the gmail password and my gut feeling needed to see what he is searching on his phone. Yes, it was heart breaking lots of porn and looking up girls from his past. Thought he was a different person all together. He found out just today and changed his password, really who cares! People need to want to better themselves to be a better person. Tired of the head game all the time when he's in front of me on his phone . Our children do not need to be around this negative energy. My trust is forever gone. Instead of looking up passed girlfriends maybe find some internet knowledge of how to be a better husband and father. Hope you find your own karma with a girlfriend who is just like you.